After reading AAR's and attempting a few campaigns it has become obvious that there is no way to win against the German juggernaut. The allies can play around in the pond and win stirring victories but if the USSR loses then everybody loses. The Russian campaign is crucial and evidence indicates USSR hasn't a prayer. Tried the '41 campaign with preset forces. No chance. Tried the '39 another stomping. The fact is the German is too strong and the Soviets are too weak. In order to give USSR a chance I used very easy setting. gained level 2 in inf and arm, and built as many arm corps as possible to provide mobility to adjust to German thrusts. German took a a while to subdue Greece, so invaded Russia in july,a little late one would think. Mobility did help and I was even able to bait the German AI to divert his schwerpunkt in order to pounce on weak units. It plays like a computer chess program, going for material. With mobility was able to fall back from worst punishment and looked to the winter to arrive. Big deal! So what happened to the Rasputitsa ? No mud effects, no reduction in German mobility even in the snow which held off til Dec! All I noticed was a slight loss of eff. So I fell back during the winter to a long as follows: approaches to Leningrad,halfway from Smolensk to Moscow, what would be Kharkov, ( uh what happened tro that key city where 4 battles were fought over) then to Voronezh, down to Rostov. The German pressed fiorward with no flank concerns. By this I actually managed to isolate and destroy an entire Pz A. The patriotic peoples were barely had time to celebrate, when they looked up and saw more Pz armies surge forward and crush evrything. May '42 Stalin sues for peace. Isolated untis will be destroyed in June.

Please tell me how to beat the USSR. I started a 1939 campaign and was doing well until Barbarossa began. The Russian tanks were already at level 3 and cut through my invading forces like butter after crushing Finland. I couldn't make it to Riga or Smolensk by mid-1942, and the Russians were already into northern Poland/Germany.

As I recall, the Germans reached the gates of Moscow and Leningrad by the end of 1941 historically.

The Russians are easy enough to beat, assuming you know how to use concentric attacks, and have a few panzers available. Your tactical bombers pounce on Russian tank formations, and then the panzers mop them up.

Playing Russia on the other hand, is just completely hopeless, even on easy (I did not try very easy, if a game is so poorly balanced that a fairly experienced wargamer can not win at easy, then its no hope). MY experiences with Russia was quite close to what the OP had (or slightly worse since I was on easy, and not very easy.

I thought I had a pretty good force of three or four level 2 armored corps, a couple of mech corps, and a few infantry armies and corps on the USSR border in July 1941. I already took Greece, Yugoslavia, France, Denmark, Poland, the Low Countries, and Narvik in Norway.

Concentric attacks did more damage to my units than the enemy because the Russian tank armies (of which there were many) were over 20 strength and at level 3 in July 1941. On its turn, four Russian tank armies would suddenly appear around one of my units and destroy it.

I could only afford one Tac bomber and two fighters. When I tried recon, my fighters were intercepted, so my bomber was of no use. It was all very depressing.

I did write about it in that other post, but here is what I did: I bought 3 amph points, and in february or march 40 I placed my best infantry army (with commander) on the amph ship, moved it to north sea next turn. When invading Denmark, I sent one of my armored corps north to capture as much map as possible (and an inf army to actually capture Copenhagen in a few turns), then my two tac bombers relocated to northern Denmark, in striking range of Oslo. Next turn, I landed my infantry army next to Oslo, did a naval bombardment (which seems kinda useless, but whatever), then repeatedly bombed the Oslo unit with the bombers, before attacking with the landed infantry. After that, it was a case of transporting (not amphibious) more units to Oslo, and walking them to Bergen, using tac bombers to support the attack. I didn't capture Narvik until sometime in early 41 though, but that was a pure infantry job by then. You can of course get 3 more points and land on Narvik as well as Oslo, which is probably the better idea, saving time.

I noticed on previous plays, when marching units across Norway, they very quickly weaken due to lack of supply. So by the time I reach Bergen or Oslo they're very weak and are destroyed by the city defending force. Regardless, Norway is a small prize compared to Russia where I had the most trouble.

They will face troubles in Norway between Oslo and Bergen only if you have problems with the navy, I put all my ships (plus one newly built escort carrier, think thats the cheapest one) in the North Sea, and only occasionally did they have supply issues. I agree that Russia is a far bigger priority than Norway, of course, but an "economical" invasion of Norway and France helps gearing up for Russia. :)

I have played only one game all the way through... The 1939 Scenario, played as the German side. I am a newbie at wargaming (well, to be exact, I last played a computer wargame during the heyday of AH Third Reich), so I set Germany and Italy on Very Easy, and the Allies all on Very Hard so that I could learn the ropes (sorry, but the tutorials are not very instructive). I invaded Russia in July 1941; could have done it earlier, but decided to take care of my Western flank by dispatching England through a successful Operation Sealion... When I turned my attention to Russia, even with Russia being set to Very Hard, all I could say was an expression that shares the same initials as World Trade Federation...! It was scary looking at all the tank and infantry armies. They pretty much had me behind the Operation Barbarossa timeline from the beginning, and they did not really crack until mid 1942, and I only finally took their last bastion in the Caucuses in September 1943. That is fast, I must admit, but I was set to Very Easy, and the Russians to Very Hard, and I had absolutely nothing to fear on the Western Front for a good chunk of this time... Yes, I will dial down the PP advantage that I get, and the disadvantage that the Allies get as I gain experience, but I don't think I will ever get enough experience to take the Russian tank horde for granted...!

By the way, for those who don't think that air power is important, I found it ideal for quickly taking down the tank armies strength to something mortals could deal with.

I have played only one game all the way through... The 1939 Scenario, played as the German side. I am a newbie at wargaming (well, to be exact, I last played a computer wargame during the heyday of AH Third Reich), so I set Germany and Italy on Very Easy, and the Allies all on Very Hard so that I could learn the ropes (sorry, but the tutorials are not very instructive). I invaded Russia in July 1941; could have done it earlier, but decided to take care of my Western flank by dispatching England through a successful Operation Sealion... When I turned my attention to Russia, even with Russia being set to Very Hard, all I could say was an expression that shares the same initials as World Trade Federation...! It was scary looking at all the tank and infantry armies. They pretty much had me behind the Operation Barbarossa timeline from the beginning, and they did not really crack until mid 1942, and I only finally took their last bastion in the Caucuses in September 1943. That is fast, I must admit, but I was set to Very Easy, and the Russians to Very Hard, and I had absolutely nothing to fear on the Western Front for a good chunk of this time... Yes, I will dial down the PP advantage that I get, and the disadvantage that the Allies get as I gain experience, but I don't think I will ever get enough experience to take the Russian tank horde for granted...!

By the way, for those who don't think that air power is important, I found it ideal for quickly taking down the tank armies strength to something mortals could deal with.

I concentrated on tanks, so I didn't buy many bombers. So I didn't put much emphasis on the bombers. Maybe the next time I play as the Germans, I will buy some bombers and see how it plays out